As you can see in the infographic, more people are flying than ever before - IATA reported 265 million more passengers than last year. However, profits are lower - $33.8 billion this year versus $38.0 billion in 2017. To quote IATA:

"The decline in airline margins and ROIC in 2018 is being driven by a rise in breakeven load factors, as unit costs are now rising..."

Despite this, the forecast profits for 2018 will be the fourth-highest ever recorded. Recent changes to industry structure and behavior should help create better margins in the coming years. For example, newer and more fuel-efficient aircraft will replace older fleets.

IATA also made the following predictions for 2018:

The number of unique city-pair connections will grow to more than 21,000 - this is more than double the number of connections available 20 years ago.

Tourists traveling by air will spend $794 billion.

There will be 39 million scheduled aircraft departures. That's an average of 74 aircraft departing each minute.